Computable Phenotypes: Standardized Ways to Classify People Using Electronic Health Record Data.

Computable phenotypes (CPs) are an increasingly important structured and reproducible method of using electronic health record data to classify people. CPs have the potential to provide important benefits to health information management (HIM) professionals in their everyday work. A CP is a precise algorithm, including inclusion and exclusion criteria, that can be used to identify a cohort of patients with a specific set of observable and measurable traits. With the use of CPs, a series of technical steps can be taken to automatically identify people with specific traits, such as people with a particular disease or condition. CPs were first used outside of the HIM domain for clinical trials and network-based research. Because CPs are becoming more easily shareable, they have the potential to be used by HIM professionals to help improve coding, reporting, management, sharing, and reuse of clinical information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]